Erik
@sjcaustenite
American in Prague, podcaster, he/him, 🏳️🌈
Name a TV show you're certain no-one remembers but you. (BTW, I can still sing parts of the theme tune.)
Post you in another country. Me, in Rome with @quarkmcmalus.bsky.social and his lovely wife, September 2025.
Anyone here know Chinese spices well? These seed pods (?) were in my beef stew. The chef is from the Chongqing area and the dish definitely tasted Szechuan, but I have never seen these, and the wait staff didn't know its name.
Without intending to, I had managed to avoid hearing "Wonderful Christmastime" until coming down for breakfast this morning at my hotel. And then, bam. Merry Christmas, everyone!
My neighborhood this morning. Contrary to what many seem to believe, it doesn't actually snow in Prague that often -- so it's nice to enjoy it while it lasts.
Even by Ezra Klein standards, this is incredibly stupid and attempts to rewrite a history we all lived through as recently as earlier this week.
The greying of the political classes is *not* a new trend, but it's just getting worse over time.
Leaving Edinburgh this evening, so making the most of the lovely weather to have fish and chips on the beach.
If I'd been Michael Grade in 1985, I probably would have tried to cancel the show, as well.
Signed up for a spa treatment at the hotel because they were open today and my mom was recovering from her trip, so I had time. Ended up getting a Hammam treatment which involved a hot shirtless dude giving me a foam massage. Merry Christmas! (Photo for reference, only)
Meanwhile, I have finally cracked the code of brewing a cup of tea that tastes very similar to Constant Comment, or at least my memory thereof. (We don't have Bigelow teas here.)
Searching for "drinks" in my photos, decided to post the most deranged result...
Today's advent calendar goodies -- a Ceylon black tea and a Christmas Cookie scented candle from Yankee Candle.
Standing amidst the ruins of the ancient agora in the town of Kos, listening to the cicadas whose music would have permeated the air when the buildings were new. In places like this, the ancient world feels so tantalizingly close.
Having a lot of issues with the package holiday I'm on. Everything is being sorted thanks to the excellent hotel staff, fortunately, and I am trying to just enjoy the view. When this is the view, it's pretty easy.
Oh the notion that the correct answer lies in some sort of middle ground between the "Left" and the "Right" -- how privileged and out of touch do you need to be to still believe that in 2024.
Listening to an episode of the BBC's excellent podcast "In Our Time" about the Finnish epic The Kalavala. Turns out, the MST3K classic "The Day the Earth Froze," based on the epic, is a pretty accurate representation of the source material.